The Whiteboard: Making sense of LaMelo Ball

When was the last time the NBA's fourth-leading scorer and eighth-leading assister warranted this much controversy? Ever?

LaMelo Ball is leading Eastern Conference guards in All-Star voting. He's averaging 29.3 points per game, 7.6 assists, 5.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game. He's shooting 24 times a game, and nearly 13 of those are 3-pointers.

He's also drawing the ire of a large swath of fans who will try to convince you he's a basketball cancer who plays with the sole intention of delivering flashy highlight packages while tarnishing our beautiful sport more and more each day. That he's posting huge numbers for the sake of posting huge numbers, but those numbers aren't helpful to his basketball team. The réalbasketbol folks, if you will.

I'm not buying that. I'm keeping my real estate on LaMelo Island. It's beautiful this time of year.

LaMelo Ball plays a brash, unapologetic brand of basketball. His portfolio of moves begins on the edges of where the rest of the league doesn't dare go. Sometimes that goes incredibly well, and Ball provides an all-time highlight on a random Wednesday afternoon.

Sometimes, it goes horribly wrong and LaMelo clanks 25 shots in a game and tanks Charlotte's offense. At one point this season, he attempted 103 shots in a three-game span, all losses for Charlotte. (He scored 127 points in those three games, for the record.)

But without Ball ... this offense is tanked anyway! This team has a small chance of winning with LaMelo Ball chucking 30 times a game and a near-zero chance of winning when he's not. It's hard to overstate how little offensive competence this roster holds; is a good shot from anyone else on this team a better option than a wild shot from LaMelo? In my heart, I do not believe so.

Charlotte is 1-10 without LaMelo and 10-18 with him this season. He doesn't turn this team into world-beaters by any means, but he at least keeps the team competitive; he turns them into an NBA team.

Ball didn't become a crazed, shot-chucking maniac overnight, and it's dishonest to act like he's completely forgone caring about winning basketball just to chuck up shots; he has played some ridiculous basketball this season, I will concede that; but I also believe that's more out of necessity than he's given credit for.

Charlotte refuses to build a competent offensive roster

If the 2024-25 NBA season ended today, the Hornets would finish the year with a shooting percentage of 42.9. No team in the NBA has posted a worse field goal percentage since the 2015-16 Lakers, who were so bad that Kobe shooting 22-50 in his final NBA game helped their team shooting percentage.

I like Brandon Miller a lot; I think multiple All-Star appearances are in his future. But right now, he's an incredibly inefficient scorer who is still trying to find his footing as an NBA wing. He's Charlotte's second option.

After Miller on the "offensive option" list in Charlotte is Miles Bridges, who shouldn't be in the NBA for non-basketball reasons, but he is, and his true shooting percentage is just a few notches away from being league-average! Hooray!

After Bridges is Mark Williams, who I also like a lot, but 75 percent of his shots are within four feet of the basket. He's not creating any offensive magic by himself.

So, just to clarify, the Hornets scoring options after LaMelo are two wings who post well below league-average efficiency and a center who's most comfortable inside the paint catching lobs.

And you LaMelo to... shoot fewer shots? Spread the love to his teammates? I can't endorse that. I won't! You can't make me!

LaMelo Ball can lead a winning team in the playoffs, and I will not be knocked off this hill. Just surround him with productive, veteran NBA players! Fun things will ensue, I'm sure of it.

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NBA news roundup

• Don't look now... but the New Orleans Pelicans are hot. Okay, you can look. They'd probably appreciate it if you looked, actually. Winners in five of their last six, the Pels came back from 25 on Monday to beat the Jazz. CJ McCollum scored 45 points, his third 38-plus-point outing in January. Hooping!

• Cade Cunningham is definitely an All-Star ... and how close are we to talking about All-NBA? Another wondrous game from Cade (32/9/7) as Detroit upended Houston, 107-96. The Pistons are 8-3 in January. Anyone want to play these guys in the first round? No volunteers?

• Do you hear footsteps approaching? That's Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, who are two games out of the two-seed in the West after Houston's loss on Monday.

Make me a believer, Scoot

If you look at Scoot Henderson's stats for the season at large, you'd be inclined to think he's having a pretty good sophomore year! He's averaging 12.6 points, 5.3 assists, shooting 35 percent from deep, his shooting efficiency is up and his advanced numbers are way up from his rookie year — still not great, but improved. He's slowly moving in the right direction, according to the stats.

In actuality, Scoot's improvements have been anything but linear. He started the year and looked as rough as he did last season, but since the calendar flipped to 2025, he's been a menace for Portland. A good kind of menace! He's averaging 15.8 points, 5.7 assists while shooting 50 percent from the floor and 43.7 percent from deep.

He's also getting to the line more, and maybe most importantly, he looks like a confident basketball player. Like he believes in what he's capable of. Like he deserves to be on the floor!

Those are starting point guard numbers. Maybe not "No. 3 overall pick" numbers, but we won't be greedy for now.

Prove me wrong, Scoot — reinvent the NBA development timeline on your own terms.